Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend November-December 1906: Vol 26 Iss 5

THE

Anti-Slavery Reporter

PUBLISHED UNDER THE SANCTION OF THE

BRITISH AND FOREIGN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

Vol. exveeas.5.$ NOVEMBER—DECEMBER, 1906. go ratln 30.

CONTENTS.
ay
THE SLAVE TRADE IN PORTUGUESE WEST AFRICA.

PARLIAMENTARY: Native Laspour IN PORTUGUESE COLONIES;

SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR; LABOURERS FROM B.C.A.

* THE PROPOSED NILE-CONGO RAILWAY: CORRESPONDENCE. WITH

THE FOREIGN OFFICE
THE CONGO QUESTION

THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN BAROTSELAND: AppREss To

LEWANIKA ...
SLAVE DEALING IN MOROCCO _... i ts i AN het 128
BLACKS AND WHITES IN AMERICA AND ELSEWHERE ... bi 129
SLAVERY AS IT WAS. IN THE WEST INDIES asp Frage 132
REVIEWS: Red Rubber: Samba Bes ba ves dis wk ee 133

RESIGNATION 5 ces yes fe an ety ae aie we 1 136

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICES OF THE SOCIETY,

51, DENISON HOUSE, VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.W.

Newnnam, Cowgtt & Grireszr, Lrp., Printers, 75, Chiswell Street, London, E.O,

1906.
The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

PATRON:

HIS MAJESTY THE

KING.

President:
1888 SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, Bart., G.C.M.G.

Vice-Presidents :

1893 J. A. PEASE, Esq., M.P.

Treasurer :

1901 H. W, W. WILBERFORCE, Esq.

Committee :

1898 W. A. ALBKIGHT, Esq.

1876 J. G. ALEXANDER, Esq., LL.B.

1906 Mrs. C. E, ALEXANDER

1901 B. R. BALFOUR, Esa.

1894 E. WRIGHT BROOKS, Esa.

1893 CEPHAS BUTLER, Esq

1889 Rr. Hon. SYDNEY C. “BUXTON, M.P.
1893 JOEL CADBURY, Esa.

1906 Mrs. JOEL CADBURY.

1893 FREDERICK G. CASH, Esq.

1904 J. EDMUND CLARK, Esq.

1906 Miss CUST.

1883 R. W. FELKIN, Esq.,

1885 wee — ‘Sir F. I ‘GOLDSMID,

1886 HENRY GURN EY, Esq.

1904 Sir H. H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G.,
K.C.B ‘

1882 CALEB R. KEMP, Esq.

1906 Mrs. KING LEWIS.

1895 DONALD MACKENZIE, Esq.

1894 W. CAREY MORGAN, Esa.

1893 JOHN MORLAND, Esq.

1901 WM. C. PARKINSON, Esgq., L.C.C.

1903 H. PIKE PEASE, Esq., M.P.

1882 ARNOLD PYE-SMITH, Esa.

1885 FRANCIS RECKITT, Esq.

1906 Lapy SCOTT.

1885 W. H. WYLDE, Esq., C.M.G. (late
of the Foreign Office Slave-Trade De-
partment),

Corresponding Members:

Ricat Rev. Bisoor TUCKER, Uganda.

G. T. ABRINES, Esg., Tangier. 4

FRANK ALLEN, Esgq., Alexandria.

THEODORE BURTT, Esgq., Pemba.

Hon. anp Rev. H. CLARKE, Jamaica.
WILLIAM HARVEY, Esq. , Leeds.

Carrain E. C. HORE ‘Sesaaie-

G. P. HUNOT, Esg., British Vice-Consul, Saffee.

Mons. HIPPOLY YTE LAROCHE, Paris, ‘Ancien
Résident Général de France, Madagascar.

ik LE Proressgur G. BONET MAURY, Paris.
A. C. MORASSO, Esg., Gibraltar.

G. MOYNIER. Esq. Geneva.

Sennor J OAQUIM BUCO

Pror. EDOURRD NAVILLE, Genéva.

M. JOH. PATER, Tehe:

Comte px ST. GEORGE, G Geneva.

WILLIAM SUMMERS, Esq. ., Tangier.

M. Lz Comts D'URSEI, Brussels.

Secretary:
18988 TRAVERS BUXTON, M.A.

Bankers ; Messrs. Banotay & Co., Ltd., 1, Pall Mal) Kast.

a

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@he Anti-Blavery Reporter.
NOVEMBER—DECEMBER, 1906.

[The Editor, whilst grateful to all correspondents who may be kind enough
to furnish him with information, desires to state that he is not responsible for the
views stated by them, nor for quotations which may be inserted from other journals.
The object of the RerortER is to spread information, and articles are necessarily
quoted which may contain views or statements for which their authors can alone be
held responsible. |

The Slave Trade in Portuguese West Africa.

Tue report of Consul Nightingale on his visit to the islands of San Thomé
and Principe, so long promised and deferred, has at length been received at
the Foreign Office, but it has not been published, as will be seen from the
reply given to the question asked in Parliament, which we print below.* It
may be said, however, that while the report relates to the condition of the
labourers in the islands, it does not touch upon what we conceive to be the
worst part of this abominable business, viz, the purchase of the men and
women in the interior, and their conveyance as slaves to the coast whence
they are exported. This traffic is reported by Mr. Nevinson to be increasing,
especially in the interior.

A series of articles has been appearing in the Cape Times by a former
Boer Commandant named Pienaar, describing his experiences in Angola,
which tally precisely with what Mr. Nevinson has made known. He speaks
of » system of slavery as existing in the islands as well as on the main-
land :—

“ Men and women are brought from the interior, shackled together in some
instanees by wooden shackles, in batches of four, being driven like cattle for
weeks in this position without any consideration for age or sex. They are
brought in this way to the coast, where a certain formula is gone through to
legalise this vicious trade in human fiesh.”

He describes the ceremony of binding the labourers to their contract,
which

“ appears to be in order and according to law, but the cruelty is that the men
and women do not understand a single word of what is read to them, nor is it
intended that they should.”

As regards the repatriation of the labourers at the end of their term,
which we have been assured by a recent semi-official note from Lisbon, ‘“ has
always been effected in conformity with established conditions,” this witness

* Page 122,

116 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

states that he is ay sure that you cannot find half-a-dozen who have
actually returned.”

There has been more than one attempt lately to deny the charges made,
and to give a rose-coloured account of the conditions of native labour in
Portuguese West Africa. In particular, an anonymous but official pamphlet
called a Mémoire Justificatif has been published at Lisbon, in which stress is
Jaid on the excellent regulations drawn up by the Portuguese Government.
We have heard before of these humanitarian laws which provide for the well-
being of the labourers; the question is how they are worked in practice.
Mr. Nevinson, writing in the Daily Chronicle, says :—

“ Last year and the year before I was travelling on the mainland of Angola,
and in the two islands, and I found a completely organised system of slavery,
nominally conducted in accordance with the regulations of which the author of
the pamphlet is so proud. By slavery I mean the sale of human beings and the
deprivation of liberty. I found that the planters of San Thomé and Principe
(the plantations are now chiefly for cocoa, though coffee is still grown) put in
requisitions to a local committee at San Thomé for the number of fresh
labourers they want from time to time. The labourers required are collected

at the coast towns of Benguella, Novo Redondo, and Loanda by agents specially

appointed according to law by the Central Labour Board in Lisbon. They
obtain the labourers either from other authorised agents, who purchase them
from natives and from professional slave-hunters in the interior and send them
down in gangs, or from local people who have natives to part with. The aver-
age price on the coast is from £16 to £20 for a man or woman, though for a girl
of special beauty I have known as much as £25 given at Benguella.

“The profits on the trade with the interior would be enormous if so many of
the victims did not die upon the long march through swamps and forests and
mountains, including a desert region where there is nothing to eat. I have
followed that slave route for many hundred miles myself, and have found it
strewn with skeletons and with the wooden shackles by which the slaves are
tied up.”

Mr. Nevinson goes on to say that he never heard anyone, even a Portu-
guese official, deny that the natives were bought and sold. The traffic could
hardly be more open than as he saw it. The consent of the labourers to
their contract is a mere farce, and their condition is one of slavery, whatever
it may be called. He continues :—

“Whether the Portuguese Government chooses to call these people
‘servicaes’ or contract labourers appears to me to make no difference to their
slavery. Nor do all the regulations quoted in the pamphlet about regis-
tration, minimum wages, repatriation funds, medical assistance, hospitals,
créches, limits to infantile labour, hygienic huts, and the supposed provision
of agricultural and industrial schools. When each slave costs about £30 and
the death-rate is enormous, the planters may generally be trusted to keep
their human instruments alive as long as possible. Ovly a madman would

Nov.-DEc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 117

kill his useful and expensive horse for spite. But regulations for comfort
and health have nothing whatever to do with the question of slavery.”

These arguments in defence of slavery are, as Mr. Nevinson says, no:
new thing, and meanwhile we remember that “San Thomé is the most lucra-
tive of Portuguese possessions.”

A remarkable article has appeared in a German newspaper, the Ham-
burg Fremden Blatt, entitled “The Slave Trade in Angola in the 20th
Century,” which gives a realistic and horrible account of the labour condi-
tions in Angola, by one who has receutly been in the country and has visited
the plantations. The article mainly describes another side of the question to
that of which we know from Mr. Nevinson, but it conveys a striking idea of
what goes on in the colony under Portuguese rule.

We add a translation of part of this long article :—

“ Angola is, as is well known, the beautiful Portuguese Colony on the West Coast
of Africa—a Colony which, in other hands, might be an earthly paradise, for climate,
soil, ete., produce there for man and beast all that one can expect of a tropical and
semi-tropical climate. But a curse rests upon the country, the most infamous which
we can imagine, the curse of the slave-trade. Who will believe it possible that the
neighbours of the German dominions, of the proud and free British, of the Free
Congo State, could to-day pursue such a commerce, year after year, not only with
single individuals, but with thousands of negroes? This infamous slave-trade is
carried on with the approval of Europeans, for there at San Paul de Loanda float
the flags of their Consuls. . . . With a total of about 14,000 natives,’ who,
according to official statistics, compose the black population of Loanda, one can only
enumerate the number of men at the highest at from 600 to 1,000. The remainder
of the black population consists of little children and women of different ages, not
too old. Every thinking man will involuntarily ask himself the question, Where are
the men? . . . Everyone knows that in Angola in general, and in San Paul de
Loanda in particular, the Kaffir practises polygamy, but the disproportion is still
too great to be explained in this way. There must be some other reason. The
mortality of the two sexes is against the women, for with the Bantus the woman is
a mere beast of burden, and therefore she wears out much quicker than the men.
Questions and inquiries made from Portuguese merchants, officials, or missionaries
give no explanation of the riddle, for the whole white population has made a secret
compact to conceal the shame of the slave-trade which they carry on. The explana-
tion will, however, instantly be found if a greater number of workmen or porters
is wanted for a journey into the interior. There are no free workmen. All the
Kaffirs who work there along the coast are so-called ‘Servicgaes’ (servants), who
have entered into a so-called contract, a contract which is independent of age and
sex, that is to say, it is not asked whether the contracting negro is 5 or 40 years
old, whether it is a man or a woman, whether a boy ora girl. All negroes, of what-
ever age or sex they may be, can enter into such a contract for the term of their
life. It is sufficient that the white man who enters into the contract, before the
official who is entrusted with it—a curador de servicaes—should declare that the
negro in question is prepared to sign or to give his consent, or the signed contract
is presented without the presence of the negro, or the negro is brought in and says

118 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

‘Yes.’ Of what stands in the contract, or what rights and duties the contracting
parties have, the negro has no presentiment. The way in which a doctor in the
Portuguese navy conceives the matter is brought out in a book, ‘Exploracao
geographica e mineralogica. no districto de Mossamedes em 1894-1895, por J.
Perreira do Nascimento.’ This book, which was printed in Lisbon in the year 1898,
says that legally authorised contractors (agents) buy prisoners of war from the
Government for 10,000 to 15,000 reis, and get rid of them for 50,000 to 70,000 reis to
white men, whereby the undertaking party binds himself to provide maintenance and
clothing for the negro, in addition to medical treatment, and is further obliged to
pay him the monthly wage of 600 reis (three marks). . The agreement is transferable
from one white to another, and the negro can give him notice that he wishes to
leave—if he has saved the 500 to 600 marks with his monthly pay of three marks,
It is evident that the negro will never more be free. And if his owner makes him
an advance in the shape of German or Portuguese ‘Aqua ardente’ (brandy) he will
have to wait for a miracle before he ever becomes free again. These ‘prisoners of
war,’ whom the Portuguese Government sells to the slave-traders who have a legal
concession, are not all really prisoners of war. All criminals who are arrested by
the police for any reason, if they are not already servicaes (slaves), are sold as such.
But these sources do not long suffice to satisfy the demand for ‘Servicaes.’ The
intelligence of the Portuguese has taken a step further; they have instituted in
their Colony regular ‘ Bridewells’ for the production of slaves.”

The writer then quotes from Dr. Schulz a passage regarding the breeding of
slaves which used to go on in the Southern United States, and adds :—“ This fits word
for word the description of the circumstances which still exist to-day in Angola,
even in San Paul de Loanda, under the eyes of the Governor, the Bishop and the
high officials. Now do you understand what the great number of women in San Pau!
de Loanda means? . . . Such conditions, which make one’s hair stand on end to
hear of, exist in the most beautiful part of South-West Africa. What is done with
all these slaves? As Dr. Nascimento says, they are sold to the planters in the
different parts of the Colony, but principally they are exported to the island of S.
Thomas, for the cocoa planters in that place pay better prices. 3,500 to 4,500 men
and women are brought annually to this island in order to make up for the dead or
escaped slaves. More than 40,000 negroes work there, on an island which is well
known for its deadly climate. Those who do not succumb to hard work or sickness
(sleeping -sickness) die of home sickness. The women of San Paul de Loanda, of
Benguella, etc., give their young, when they are 2 to 24 years old, to other women,
who are entrusted with the breeding of the ‘brood.’ When the young one is so far
grown up that he can be put to some use, at 6 or 8 years of age, he enters into the
so-called contract, or he steps quite simply into the place of a dead ‘Servicae,’ in
this way, that he answers the name of the dead man. . . . What are the profits
of this slave-trade in those parts, into which nearly the whole white population has
thrown itself? A grown-up man is worth from four to five hundred marks, the
woman according to her age, health, etc.; the same applies to lads and girls. The
following computation may give an idea of the profits of the business for San Paul
de Loanda. Assuming that of the whole black population only 3,000 women annually
bear children; of the 3,000 children, there die, with a mortality of 56 per 1,000 in
the first three years and of 40 per 1,000 in the following seven years, so many
ehildren, that at the end of the tenth year only 1,900 children survive. These
children are on an average worth 200 marks per head, therefore 38,000 marks,

Nov.-DEc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 119

This computation is much under the true market value, for it must not be forgotten
that girls at 15 and still earlier can become mothers, and that the youth of 15 is
worth 500 marks and more. It must not be forgotten that the parents during this
time, like the youth himself, work and earn their living. By way of extra profit the
woman gives herself up to prostitution to the white men, for a mulatto has a higher
value, and he will, of course, be sold along with the rest—no, he enters upon an
agreement as ‘Servicae’ for five years. How is it that the young men do not run
away? Where could they go? This slave-trade has created a depopulated zone
five days’ journey in width round the coast possessions of the Portuguese in the
north; the Bantus have escaped wherever they could. Moreover, in the northern
part of the Colony stands a series of so-called military posts, which are intended to
secure the order and safety of the Colony. These arrest every runaway ‘Servicae,’
and release him for a remuneration of 30 to 40 marks to hisowner. . . . India-
rubber, palm oil, and ‘Servicaes’ are the chief articles which come from the
interior to the coast in Angola. The National Navigation Company provides for
the transport to San Thomé in the few little coasting vessels. I heard the piteous
cries of the young men in one of these small vessels during a night in Benguella,
and shall never forget it all my life. Should one of these slaves succeed in escaping
from S. Thomé to the Cameroons, lying opposite, then he is free, for the Germans
do not give up any slaves; but should he come to Fernando Po or to one of the
other Spanish Colonies, then he goes back to S. Thomé, One can well understand
that it is not easy for a Kaffir, who has no notion of the geographical position of S.
Thomé, to make himself a boat, and with this to sail hundreds of miles on the ocean
until good luck brings him to the Cameroons or some safe harbour. Many flee into
the woods of 8. Thomé, where they are hunted from time to time with hounds, and
are shot down in their hiding places on the branches of the trees like birds.

‘‘Our ladies, who drink the good cocoa and chocolate, have no notion how the
Portuguese planters get their workmen. That one finds no labourers in the most
healthy and most beautiful part of West Africa—in Angola—is, after what has been
said, explicable. If one wants ten to twenty porters for a journey to the interior
one can only obtain them from the owner of the ‘Servicaes’; one must either buy
or hire them. In the latter case one must give the owner of the ‘Servicaes’
security that they will all be returned to him sound, or one must be held responsible
for the escaped and dead. If anyone requires further details of this state of things
he should read the highly interesting articles by Henry W. Nevinson in Harper's
Magazine of December, 1905, to February, 1906; also H. Baum, who in his beautiful
work, ‘Cunene-Zambesi’ (Berlin, 1903), the best German work on South Africa,
speaks only of slaves as porters, workers, etc. For the building of the railway from
Lobito, near Benguella, to the interior, the concessionaire, Robert Williams, was
obliged to import all his workmen from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Congo, ete.—English,
French and Belgian negroes, but no Portuguese—for in the first place he would
have had to buy them, and what he could not buy he certainly could not have got
from Angola, for the negro of the interior knows well enough that if he falls into the
hands of a Portuguese official it is all up with his freedom; he never sees his hut
again. If anyone wishes to see this for himself he has only got to take a coasting
steamer of the Woermann Line and go there. How is it possible that such an
infamous state of things can be carried on under the eyes, the protection of the
European Powers? . . . Wewill describe an excursion to a plantation and to
the salt garden of one of the richest Portuguese, 25 kilometres on the road from

120 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

Loanda. There we see principally women employed on cement work. . . . The
deportment of the director who shows us the grounds is the living copy of a
Portuguese slave-trader as he existed centuries ago. All is in a whisper, no noise.
Every one of these women has a little hut in a courtyard enclosed by a wall, in
which she lives after her work with her young ones. For one man is sufficient for a
whole number of women. The woman is always pregnant, and carries her last child
on her back during work in Kaffir manner. There is no idea of merry gossip, such
as one is accustomed to with the Bantus when they work together. The overseer of
this plantation, who treated me in every respect with Portuguese friendliness and
took me for a great admirer of his breeding establishment, told me that about four
hundred negroes work there, and added, laughing, that he had over a hundred young
ones in the compound. This is just as if a cattle-breeder were boasting of the fine
increase in his herds.

“ The state of things I have described is no secret to the Governments of Europe;
they know it quite well, Why, then, do they take no action against it? If England
wished to do anything she would at once have ranged against her the influential
party of the Lisbon cocoa-planters, and a considerable part of the European Press
would at once say that England was trying to fish in troubled waters, in order to get
hold of a rich colony. If Germany wished to take action against it, her enemies in
London, Paris and Lisbon would at once say that Germany was only seeking a
pretext in order to get possession of the good harbours of Loanda, Lobito and
Mossamedes, for it is well known that she has not a single harbour in German
South-West Africa. That the Congo Free State has nothing to say to it is intelli-
gible enough, for they have enough to look after at their own doors. The French,
for the most part, do not know the facts. . . . Then the Portuguese know how
to present the whole thing in so quiet and, as it were, natural an aspect that the
passing traveller has no suspicion of the state of things existing there. Men who
have lived on the Congo for years were astonished at my information, that at the
mouth of their river, near Cabinda and San Antonio, the Portuguese have arranged
for collecting stations, where the steamers belonging to the National Company may
on their homeward journey ship a hundred or more of these unfortunates and bring
them under guard to San Thomé.

“Partly they are ‘ Servicaes,’ partly the so-called prisoners of war and con-
demned criminals who were shipped at Loanda or Novo Redondo. All the difficulties
which are put in the way of every stranger who lands there are intended simply to
conceal the infamous trade and to make it as disagreeable as possible for anyone to
stay in the Colony. Without a pass . . . no one can either Jand or go away;
the last rule is especially meant to prevent the escape of the Portuguese convicts,
but also, above all, to keep fast hold of the ‘Servicaes.’ The Colony is indeed also
still a penal colony where they either let the convicts loose or keep them in a
fortress, as in Loanda, where there are over 1,000 of them. The State printing works,
the Customs, and the Post Office are served by convicts, under the control of a few
officers. There is also a military contingent of convicts, who may be recognised by
their special uniform and arms; they carry muzzle-loaders of an antique pattern.

“ The slave trade brings its own revenge on the nation which resorts to it, in
different ways. The curse of the unfortunates must in some way or another come to
light. St. Paul de Loanda and all Angola cost the Portuguese more than they
produce. Everything in the country is falling into decay. The Portuguese have
been there for 400 years and they have done nothing. . . . They have built one

Nov.-DEc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 121

railway from Loanda to the interior, which bears the high-sounding name of Railway
through Africa (C.F.A.A.), but in reality it is a railway on paper, being used only
for the carriage of slaves, some oxen and a few bricks. In a country of thousands
of square miles, with a climate of the finest kind, they cannot even grow potatoes
for the handful of Portuguese who live there, for they are imported from Lisbon !
- « + Almost all kinds of work are done by women, for, as we have said, the
number of men is very limited. ~The negro can procure as much ‘ Aqua ardente’
(brandy) as he can pay for. Some of the brandy is produced on the spot from sugar
cane, but the greater part is imported, and is of German or Dutch manufacture.
The Portuguese Government does all it can to suppress the manufacture on the
spot, since it has no control over the manufactufers. Tobacco may not be grown,
for it is the monopoly of a Portuguese firm. Cotton cannot be grown, although it
flourishes exceedingly, because there is no labour. The plantations which used to
exist have disappeared, for the death-rate among the negroes in slavery is very high
and the population does not increase, the sleeping sickness has caused terrible
devastation, and the Portuguese are powerless to cope with it. We heard recently
of a war which the Portuguese had undertaken against the Ovambos and other tribes
on the Cunene, which is the boundary river between German and Portuguese West
Africa, without gaining the support of the Boers in that district. One column of
Portuguese native-born soldiers was surprised when on the march and killed to the
last man, over 300 of them. These tribes are fighting not only for their indepen-
dence, but also for their personal freedom, for they know quite well that if they fall
into the hands of the Portuguese they will be sold as ‘ Servicaes.’ The Portuguese
naturally call them robbers and rebels.

“T hope that by these few lines I have convinced many readers that the title of
my article,‘The Slave Trade in Angola,’ is more than justified. I have only one
desire, that better pens than mine, and more influential persons than I, may take up
this thing and roll away this disgrace from the shoulders of Europe.”

%9

Parliamentary.

House or Commons, October 29th.
Native Lasour iN Portuaugese Conontgs.

Sir E. Grey, having been asked by Sir B..Gurpon whether he will lay
upon the table of the House a report received from Consul Nightingale as to
his recent visit to the islands of San Thomé and Principe to inquire into the
condition of contract labourers recruited for service therein, with other
correspondence bearing on the recruitment of natives in Angola for that and
other service in Portuguese territory; and whether he will inform the House
as to action taken or contemplated by his Majesty’s Government with a view
to fulfilment of international obligations entered upon by the Portuguese
Government as regards the suppression of slavery and slave trading, Mr.

122 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

Runciman replies on his behalf :—A report from Consul Nightingale has been
received, but it was not written in a form for publication, and it deals only.
with part of the question. I may say generally that the conclusion is that
the labourers in San Thomé and Principe are well treated, but it is doubtful
whether the provisions for repatriation under the new regulations have
hitherto been made effective. This and other information, which has been
received or is expected soon, will be brought to the notice. of the Portuguese
Government in the hope that they will take steps to remedy the evils that
exist. When this has been dong and a reply has been received I will see
whether papers can be laid.
House or Commons, Nov. 14th,
Savery IN ZANZIBAR.

In reply to sir C. Ditxe, Mr, Cuurcniit says :—Lord Elgin is of opinion:
that the time has come to abolish the legal status of slavery in the Zanzibar
coast strip as well as on the islands, and is now in communication with the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and with the local authorities upon the
question of the most convenient measures to be adopted both in respect of
that policy and its consequences. Time will be required for the making of all
necessary arrangements: but I should hope to be able before long to make
definite and detailed statements to the House.

[We welcome this announcement with the greatest satisfaction, and await
with much expectation the promised detailed statements.—Ep. Reporter. |

LABOURERS FROM British CentraL AFRICA.

The high mortality among these natives has constantly been referred to,
and in reply to questions in the House of Commons asking that H.M. Govern-
ment will either forbid any further recruiting for the Rand Mines in British
Central Africa, or insist on greater precautions being taken by the mine-
owners for the health of the labourers, Mr. CuurcHitt made the following
important statement on the 14th Nov. :—

The Secretary of State has, after full consideration, finally decided that
further recruiting from the districts of the British Central Africa Protectorate
which show the highest rate of mortality should be forbidden, and also that no
recruiting shall take place for underground work in the mines; but, subject to
these and other conditions, he has sanctioned, as a further experiment during
the present season, the recruitment of a certain number for surface work only.
Up to 500 will be permitted to be recruited for surface work on the Premier
Diamond Mine, and up to 500 for surface work on the gold mines.

The Government does not, after careful consideration, think it necessary
altogether to forbid recruitment for surface work in districts where the mor-
tality is not unduly high, but a “ most elaborate scheme of reforms in the
interests of the health of these natives” is being insisted upon.

Nov.-Dzc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 123

The Proposed Rile-Congo. Railway.

Tue attention of the Committee having been drawn to the clause in the
Treaty between Great Britain and the Congo State whereby it has been
agreed that a concession shall be granted to an Anglo-Belgian company for
the construction of a railway in the Lado Enclave, and to the absence of any
provision against the employment of forced labour, it was resolved to address
a letter to Sir Edward Grey on this subject.

The following correspondence has accordingly taken place, and the Com-
mittee has been very glad to learn that the Government is alive to, and fully
cognisant of the possible dangers involved, and is resolved to guard against
them.

October 8th, 1906.

To tHe Ricnr Hon. Sir E. Grey, Barr,, M.P.,
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Sir,—On behalf of the Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-
Slavery Society I have the honour to address you in reference to Article IV.
of the Agreement between the British Government and the Independent
State of the Congo which was signed on the 9th of May last. By that Article
it has been agreed that: A Concession shall be given, in terms to be agreed
upon between the Sudanese and Congo State Governments, to an Anglo-
Belgian Company for the construction and working of a railway from the
frontier of the Independent State of the Congo to the navigable channel of
the Nile, near Lado, it being understood that, when the King of the Belgians’
occupation of the Enclave determines, this railway shall be wholly subject to
the jurisdiction of the Sudanese Government.

My Committee cannot look upon this part of the Agreement, as it stands,
without considerable apprehension,—having regard especially to the cruel
exactions and forced labour demanded from the natives in the Independent
State, abuses which have so deeply stirred public opinion in this country, and
which, as we know, are a subject of earnest concern to His Majesty’s Govern-
ment—and feels it to be a matter of the highest importance that, whatever
arrangements may be made to supply the labour necessary for the construc-
tion of the railway in the Lado Enclave, nothing in the nature of forced
Jabour shall be allowed.

I beg leave therefore to urge that in the terms on which the proposed
Concession is given to the Anglo-Belgian Company which is to be formed,
special provision shall be made, and a firm guarantee secured by the Sudanese
Government that only voluntary labour shall be employed, on conditions to
be' approved by the Government, and that the interests of the natives of the
districts through which the railway will pass shall be in every way safe-
guarded.

124 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

My Committee respectfully submits that a special responsibility attaches
in this matter, inasmuch as the interest on the capital expenditure to be
incurred in constructing the railway is guaranteed by the Egyptian Govern

ment.
I have the honour, etc.,

(Signed) Travers Boxton.

Foreign Orrick,
October 12th, 1906. :
Sir,—I am directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to acknowledge the receipt
of your letter of the 8th instant, relative to the employment of voluntary
native labour on the Nile-Congo Railway.

In reply, I am to state that the matter shall receive attention.
I am, etc.,
(Signed) E. Gorsr.
The Secretary to the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

Forrien Orrice,
October 31, 1906.
Si1r,— With reference to the letter from this Office of the 12th instant
relative to the employment of native labour on the proposed Nile-Congo
Railway, I am directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to inform you that your
representations on the subject were forwarded to His Majesty’s Agent and
Consul-General in Cairo.

A reply has now been received from Lord Cromer stating that the points
raised by your Society have already been considered, and that they will
certainly be borne in mind in drafting the concession to be given to the
Anglo-Belgian Company for the construction of the railway.

I am, etc.,
(Signed) E. Gorsz,
Travers Buxton, Esq.

@,

°°

The Congo Question.

THE most notable events of the last few weeks in connection with this
question have been the Debate in the Belgian Chamber of Deputies and the
important utterance of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in answer
to the influential deputation which waited upon him at the Foreign Office on
November 20th.

The deputation was a highly representative one, containing as it did
members of philanthropic and commercial bodies, including the Congo
Reform Association, the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, the Church of
England, the Scottish Churches, the Free Church Council, the Anti-Slavery

Noy.-DEc.; 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. . 125

Society, the Aborigines Protection Society, and both sides of the House of
Commons. Our Society was represented by its President, Sir T. F, Buxton.

- Sir Edward Grey fully recognised the variety and weight of the interests
represented, and declared that the feeling in the country was not only not a
party feeling but had no connection with British policy. After dwelling on
the contrast between the professions and performance of the Congo State,
Sir Edward Grey said that a complete change of conditions in the Congo was
indispensable. He regarded isolated action as a last resort; we had no
desire for an extension of our own responsibility, but along with the other
signatory Powers of the Berlin Act we had a moral responsibility. Belgium
was the Power most nearly concerned, and in any action which Belgium
should take the British Government would support her with all the goodwill
and encouragement which they could give. But if Belgium did not take the
matter up the Government would consider it their duty to “sound the other
Powers,” and he thought that the chance of success was far greater than it
was three years ago, for since then the serious report of the Commission of
Inquiry had been issued. Great Britain would readily co-operate with other
Powers in any useful action, ‘‘ without any intention whatever to secure
political advantage to ourselves.” In any case, said Sir E. Grey,

“ . . . Whatever the view of other Powers may be, it will be impossible
for us to continue to recognise indefinitely the present state of things without

a very close examination of our treaty rights and the treaty obligations of the

Congo State.”

The Debate in the Belgian Parliament which went on for several days
in November and December, seemed strangely inconclusive, The interpella-
tion of M. Hymans, who led the attack in place of M. Vandervelde, re-
lated especially to King Leopold’s letter of June 3rd, and the debate
turned largely on the conditions under which Belgium could annex the Congo
State; but the speeches ranged over a wide field, especially on the side of the
Ministers who defended the Congo policy. M. Hymans and his friends lay
stress on the legal right of Belgium to the complete sovereignty of the Congo
during the King’s life, and without conditions such as were laid down in the
codicil to the King’s will, which would render the sovereignty incomplete and
mutilated, and on the necessity for examination of the political and economic
organisation of the Congo State before Belgium can take it over.

The defenders of the royal policy seem to have endeavoured to minimise
the meaning of the King’s letter, and to explain away the conditions of
annexation which he there laid down. The King, they said, wished in
nothing to diminish the “free gift” made to the nation. As usual the
Ministerial speakers extolled the progress which had been achieved on the
Congo, denounced the British agitation as actuated simply by interested
motiyes, and made good use of the familiar tu quoque argument. It is
difficult to see what definite good can come out of this discursive debate ;

126 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. {Nov.-DEc., 1906.

at the same time, the speech of M. Vandervelde, frankly avowing his sym-
pathy with the British campaign against the Congo wrongs, and, still more
perhaps, the declaration by the experienced statesman, M. Beernaert, against
forced labour, and in favour of obtaining all necessary information with a
view to the annexation by Belgium of the Congo State, are encouraging
features in the situation. +

Meanwhile the reports of grinding oppression and cruelty continue
to be received, and the Congo machine works on, at the cost of blood
and suffering untold. The whole of the Abir territory has been placed under
martial Jaw, which is said to be a measure preparatory to the taking over of
the Concession by the State and its incorporation in the Domaine Privé.

It is clear that all over the kingdom people are becoming more and
more aroused to the iniquities which are perpetrated on the Congo, and Mr.
and Mrs, Harris, who are giving all their time to active propaganda and. are
holding meetings almost daily in different places in England, Scotland and
Wales, find no lack of enthusiasm on the subject.

There is good reason to believe that among the Powers Italy is likely to
be favourable to co-operation. with our Government, and it has been stated on
high authority that if a Conference should be called in regard to the state of
things in the Congo, the Government of the United States would be ready to
accept the invitation and send delegates.

ams
+.¢

The Abolition of Slavery in Barotseland.

WE referred in our last issue to the proclamation issued by the Paramount
Chief, Lewanika, against slavery, subject to the reservation of the rights of
chiefs to demand certain services from their people, without payment, which
are not to occupy more than twelve days in the year, and certain work forthe .
proper maintenance of the community or kraal, and for its exclusive benefit.

The Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society has forwarded a congratu-
latory address to the King, engrossed on vellum and illuminated, in the
following terms :—

To Cuizr Lewanika, Paramount Chief of the Barotse Nation and
Subject Tribes, Greeting.

Dear Frienp,—We have the honour to address you on behalf of the
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which was founded many
years ago to promote the extinction of slavery and the slave-trade
throughout the world, and especially in Africa, and has ever since
worked for that end. Our Society has learnt, with very great satisfaction,
that you have this year issued a proclamation for the liberation of all
the slaves, and the suppression of slave-trading in your country, and we

Nov.-DEc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 127

beg leave to offer to you our respectful and earnest congratulations on an
event so important, which will, we are confident, conduce to “the cause
of justice and progress” and be for the lasting benefit ef your people.

We rejoice that you have thus expressed your anxiety “to put a
stop to the exchange or gift of human beings,” whereby husbands are
separated from wives, and parents from children, which is one of the
chief evils of the slave-trade, and we venture to join in your hope that,
by means of these rules, slavery will become a thing of the past in the
country. We especially hope that the enlightened policy which you have
adopted will be effectual in putting an end to all dealings in slaves
which may still be carried on, to the grievous injury of your people, by
traders within the borders of Barotseland. We beg to assure you of
the deep interest which this Society feels in the welfare of the natives of
Africa, and, on its behalf, we respectfully commend you and your people
to the blessing of God.

(Signed) T. Fowrtt Boxvron, President.
November, 1906. Travers Buxton, Secretary.

The above letter has been sent to the Secretary of the British South
Africa Company, in London, for transmission to the King.

Mr. F. Z. 8S. Peregrino, of Cape Town, who is described as special
representative of Lewanika, is said to have contributed largely to the decision
in favour of emancipation by his timely advice and judgment, and the worthy
part which he played was recognised by letters from Mr. Worthington, the
Secretary for Native Affairs in Barotseland.

Major Coryndon, the Administrator of Barotseland, who has lately been
in this country, has stated in a recent interview that the native question
among the Barotsi is in a very sound state, and there is not the least sign of
disaffection ; the principle of governing through the native chiefs has been
followed, with good results. The recent award of the King of Italy in regard
to the Anglo-Portuguese boundary, by which the westernmost part of
Lewanika’s country was assigned to Portugal, was not, says the Administra-
tor, received at all favourably by the natives, but Lewanika accepted the de-
cision loyally. Major Coryndon adds that much trouble has been experienced
with slave caravans raiding near the frontier, but it is hoped that the estab-
lishment of two powerful police stations will bring about a cessation of the
trade.

In the old days slavery existed in a bad form in Barotseland, and besides
raiding the Chief used to.sell slaves to the Mombari (Portuguese slave-dealers),
whom for years now he has tried to prevent from entering his country and
has forbidden the sale of slaves to them.

We may well believe that the teaching and influence of the great French

128 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

missionary, M. Coillard, have had not a little to do with developing these
higher principles and ideals by.which Lewanika is now actuated.

A correspondent of the Graphic, commenting on this happy event, drew
the contrast with the contract-labour system for Angola :—.

“ While these improvements are taking place in the North and West, in
Portuguese country slavery exists in all its horrors .. . hundreds are taken
daily and sold into slavery, and no endeavour is made to put a stop to this evil.
The great slave-caravan route to the west coast still exists. As the natives say,
‘the spoor goes only one way, none return.’ It is called contracted labour.”

o,
—¢

Slave-Dealing in Morocco.

In the course of the successful raid made early in September upon the city of
Mogador by the Berber chief Anflus, a provincial governor, it is stated that
all Jews holding slaves were ordered to set them free at once, when the Caid
undertook to pay for their redemption. This iaudable action was directed,
we fear, rather by anti-Jewish feeling than by any zeal against slavery, for
he expelled some 200 Jewish families from the district where they were
living and forced them to crowd into the Mellah, causing great distress to the
poorer people. We are glad to learn from the private letter of a corre-
spondent that no less than 186 slaves were taken from the Jew slave-dealers
(many of whom were persons under European consular protection) and
liberated. ‘This correspondent states that the trade in slaves in Mogador is
mainly carried on by Jews, who act as middlemen, the slaves being sold in
exchange for sugar, tea, cotton and other merchandise.

The Caid sent his soldiers into a number of houses which he had been
told contained slaves, and he followed up his search outside the town.

A correspondent of Al-Moghreb-Al Aksa mentions another good deed of
the Caid in ordering all speculators who had stores of wheat and barley to
put them on to the market for the public benefit, compelling even the Basha.
to bring out his grain for sale ; this correspondent adds :—

“We have to applaud the Caid in his measures about the grain, but above
all in his steps of freeing slaves in the hands of Jews, and paying the owners.
their value ; though it would have been far better if he had freed also the
slaves held by Moslems, even without paying for their redemption either to.
Moslems or Jews.”

The enterprising Governor was soon forced to retire from Mogador
by the appearance of a French cruiser, and the arrival of a contingent of
Moorish troops, but his proceedings are said to be “just an illustration of
what the fighting governors are doing all over what was once the Moorish
empire.” We understand from another private correspondent that instruc-
tions have been sent to the British consular agents in the ports, reminding

Nov.-DEc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 129

them of the rule against slave-holding by British protégés, and that all
persons applying for such protection must be warned that they will not be
suffered to hold slaves.

In a recent letter to The Times, Mr. Henry Gurney, after drawing atten-
tion to the freeing of Mogador slaves by Caid Anflus, made some interesting
remarks on the present position in Morocco founded on his own experience of
travel in the country.

“There is no doubt that the situation in Morocco is becoming more grave.
Personally I feel much sympathy with the natives as distinct from the govern-
ing class. I have made a number of journeys into the interior of the country
between 1885 and 1902, and have never lost the smallest piece of property, nor
have I ever carried a revolver. When travelling to Fez in the latter year a
passing countryman called out, ‘Why do not you English help the Moors? The
Government is leaving the people hungry and without money.’ Having no
representative of the Government with me in the shape of a guard, at every
village one camped at the natives freely spoke of the rapacity and oppression
of their governors. My belief is that much suffering has been endured and that
these outbreaks are really the result of the injustice done under the present
Moorish Government. Until some European Power is allowed to undertake the
regeneration of Morocco, as has been the case in Egypt, the situation will only
go from bad to worse.”

AA
+,¢

Blacks and Whites in America and Elsewhere.

Tur shameful outbreak of racial hatred which led to the riots and massacre
of negroes in Atlanta, Georgia, a» few weeks ago, was a sad reminder of the

' urgency of this race question in the Southern States. The usual pretext of

assaults on white women was, of course, put forward as an excuse for the
brutalities which occurred, but it seems with no better ground than usual.
In the murderous affray the negroes retaliated, and many whites are said to
have been injured. Lynchings have also been reported from Kentucky,
Mississippi, and Arkansas. ‘

Senator Tillman, of South Carolina, predicts an increasing number of
racial disturbances within the next few years, on the ground that the
Southern whites are more than ever determined to maintain white supre-
macy, socially and politically, and that the negroes were never more bent on
contesting the claim. ‘Race hatred,” he says, “in every form is growing in
intensity with both races.” The importance of the question is shown by the
strong terms in which the President denounces lynching in his Message to
Congress, though he is not able to propose any way of punishing those con-
cerned in the recent “‘ wild and crooked savagery.”

130 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

Mr. Booker Washington has urged the negroes to exercise self-control
and not to be discouraged, and one good result of the riot is said to have been
to unite the better elements of the white and black races for the purpose of
restraining the lower elements of both races.

In a very suggestive article in the Contemporary Review for October, Mr.
Sidney Olivier discusses the question of the relations between white and
black in African communities, and what he calls the'long and the short views
thereon.

He draws an instructive comparison between the position of the colour
question in the Southern States of America, and in the West Indies; in the
one it is a problem of the utmost seriousness, a constant source of irritation
and danger ; in the other it is “ insignificant and practically negligible.” An
American observer, Professor Royce, of Harvard University, who has recently
drawn attention to this contrast, has pointed out that the reason cannot lie,
in the case of Jamaica, in the absence from its history of conditions which
make a race question acute. The cruelties of the plantation slavery in pre-
emancipation days are notorious, and the economic history of the island has
been in many ways unfortunate, and yet “there is no public controversy
about social race-equality or superiority,” the negroes are orderly, law-

abiding, and contented, and the English white men, few in number, control

the country with extraordinarily little friction. In the Southern States,
says the Professor, it is found necessary constantly to remind the negro of
his proper place, and to keep him in it, and this causes acute irritation on
both sides. But no attempt is made to enlist the assistance of the coloured
people in organising a beneficent and vigorous administration, and to gain
their sympathy by giving them responsibility.

In Jamaica, on the other hand, although the negro does not possess adult
suffrage under responsible democratic government, he shares in whatever
form of democratic government the white man possesses, and there is nothing
to bar any coloured man from social or civic posts for which he is intellec-
tually qualified. ‘“ We have worked,” says Mr. Olivier, “on the theory that
the African is a human being and have dealt with him on principles of civic
equality.”

It is true that the political mistake made in the emancipation of the
American negro was avoided in Jamaica, but “being a God-fearing people,
we placed the same tests and disabilities on the white as we did on the
black.” The social theory underlying the policy adopted in the West Indies
is no other than the much-abused “ Exeter Hall” doctrine of equal rights,
and the principle that has moulded these communities has been pre-
dominantly religious.

“There were plenty of secular causes in the West Indies quite capable of
producing as bitter colour-prejudice and as disastrous a division of society as.

i
]
]
i
|

Nov.-DEc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 13}

exists in the Southern States. The point is that these were overborne and
neutralised by the power of an idea, by a religious conviction accepted as
authoritative, even by those whose secular and immediate interests were over-
ridden by it. It was this that brought about emancipation. ... It is Evan-
gelical Christianity that has won (the transplanted African) and enabled him
to win his position by asserting and teaching him to appreciate his possession
of a human soul, and it could not have fought the secular tendency to enslave-
ment and race antagonism without belief in those formulas.”

This is what Mr. Olivier calls “the long view ”—“ the religious as con-
trasted with the secular, the view of the idealist as contrasted with that of
the practical man,” which, as he maintains, has here justified itself in
practice.

For “the short view,” which is the opposite of the other, Mr. Olivier
shows that many respectable excuses may be made, such as the barbarism of
the natives which the settler has to face and the temptation to adopt their
standards ; the settler, requiring black labour to maintain himself, finds the
doctrine of race superiority and the necessity of discipline for the lower race,
a natural and convenient one. Race-problems are, as Professor Royce con-
tends, at bottom caused by our antipathies, which are elemental, capricious,
and essentially child-like; but, when they assume a religious sanction,
become serious, far-reaching, and dangerous.

Mr. Olivier does well to emphasise the fact that where the white colonist
in tropical countries does not employ coercion to get the labour which he
needs, the basis of his supremacy must be a spiritual superiority.

“The white man can lead and govern the savage because and in so far as
he is not himself a savage. The principles by virtue of which the white
European has obtained a leadership which even Islam cannot. contest with him,
are principles which deny race distinctions. They are his strength. If he goes
back from them he becomes himself a barbarian, and though he may exter-
minate the black, he cannot lead or live in harmony with him.”

“No mixed community of white and coloured can attain unity and health
. . . where the governing class bases its policy on the short-sighted theory that
the dividing habits of race are permanently stronger than the unifying force of
the human spirit.”

The article, in view of the native questions which confront us and other
European nations to-day, in different forms, in all parts of Africa, is an
extremely timely one.

In this connection, we have seen recently quoted from the well-known
Paris newspaper Le ‘J’emps, some wise words of M. Roume, the Governor-
General of French West Africa, who speaks from wide experience and a ripe
judgment :—

“Mhe negro race is one of the most easily governed which exists; it is
really a fine race, at once brave and docile, hard-working, confiding, gentle ;

, crime is almost unknown amongst its members. The more I know it, the more

I like it. We can place reliance upon its qualities.”

132 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

SLAVERY AS IT WAS IN THE WEST INDIES.

The article by Mr. J. Marshall Sturge in the October number of the
Independent Review on West Indian slavery is valuable as a reminder of what
a working system of slave labour really means, and, as is pointed out in the
editorial, the story has a timely moral for the present day, which is that
white men, even Englishmen, can never safely be entrusted with absolute
uncontrolled power over black labourers. As Mr. Sturge more broadly puts
it, no one class can be trusted to have such power over any other. He cites,
to illustrate this, the case of an Englishman from whose book he quotes,
who was employed as book- keeper on a Jamaica plantation in the earlier part
of the last century. When this young man first witnessed the cruel and
gratuitously savage treatment of the slave labourers, he declared himself
ready to hang the rascals who inflicted the cruelties, but after some time his
‘feelings became a good deal blunted by seeing these things so often;” he
could not help himself, he said, and his “remarks never did any good.” No
man, he tells us, could succeed in the planting line but one whose heart was
hard as adamant.

The self-interest of the master did not in practice prove sufficient
protection for the slave, for the worst cruelties are found by Mr. Sturge to
have taken place after the abolition of the slave trade, when it was thought
that the planters, deprived of any fresh supply, would, in their own interest,
treat their remaining negroes better.

We need not bere quote the gruesome barbarities which are proved by
official records to have been inflicted on the plantation slaves. Cruel
whipping was the ordinary punishment for even trivial offences, and mutila-
tion and burning over slow fires were inflicted by the courts for stealing
and assault.

Mr. Sturge, who was himself a sugar planter in Montserrat forty years
ago, one day asked his overseer whether slavery was as bad as it was repre-
sented. The reply was, that on a certain estate known to them both, negro
after negro was killed by the manager, and nothing said.

Another little known and startling fact mentioned in the article is the
trade in slaves which went on in England itself. Advertisements are extant
from newspapers of the 18th century of the sale of slave boys and youths in
London and Liverpool, and negro “ servants’ were not uncommon.

We are apt to think too lightly nowadays of the magnitude and extent
of the evils against which Clarkson, Wilberforce, and the rest of the noble
band of anti-slavery men fought so long and so stubbornly less than a century
ago, and we need to be always on our guard lest our country becomes in any

degree entangled again in responsibility for abuses partaking of the nature of
slavery.

———

——_——{

Nov.-DEc., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 133

Reviews.
Rep Russer.* By E. D. Morel.

In this, his latest, volume of 200 pages the Hon. Secretary of the Congo
Reform Association sums up the case against the Congo State, andsummarises
its history and development in a manner which, in our opinion, is unanswer-
able. The publication of the book is singularly opportune. For gears
information has been accumulating as to the system of pillage, oppression
and murder which is dignified by the name of Government on the Congo.
There have been certain marked stages in the history, such as the confirma-

’ tion of the reports of missionaries by the official Report of Consul Casement

in 1904 and the Commission of Inquiry’s Report in 1905.

The rivulets of evidence, scanty at the first, have swelled into a rushing
torrent of facts which none can withstand or deny ; as the author says, a crisis
in the history has arrived. Our Government has issued protest upon protest
without effect, and meanwhile public opinion in Great Britain has become
more and more stirred, until the whole kingdom is roused against the horrors
perpetrated in Central Africa. The time for protest and dignified remonstrance
is past, and our country can no longer, consistently with its own self-respect,
refrain from following up words by decided action.

Mr. Morel reminds us again of the auspicious beginnings of the Congo
enterprise and of the profusion of assurances given by King Leopold as to his
great civilising and benevolent work for Africa, which induced both the
commercial and philanthropic world of Great Britain to lend him their vigorous
support and oppose the Portuguese claims to sovereignty. The Anti-Slavery
Society, it will be remembered, took a prominent part in this opposition, and
entertained high hopes of the King’s ‘‘ international undertaking.” The new

‘State was “dedicated to the exercise of every liberty,” and British sanction

was given to the King on the conditions that freedom of commerce and good
treatment of the natives were secured. Without this British sanction and .
assistance the scheme could never have been successfully initiated. For some
years the Sovereign of the Congo State quietly matured his plans for the
exploitation of the country, publishing meanwhile a crop of decrees and
regulations to show his philanthropic intentions, but secret instructions were
also issued offering bonuses to the officials to secure recruits for the army of
native savages which was being rapidly got together; these recruits were
obtained by violent raids on the villages, differing in no wise from the old
Arab slave-raids. It soon became expedient to put down the Arabs, on which
Mr. Morel remarks :—

“The disappearance of the Arab had a twofold advantage. It would
strengthen King Leopold’s reputation for philanthropy in the world, enabling him
to pose more than ever as the ‘Godefroi de Bouillon of the nineteenth century
Crusade,’ and, incidentally, would place in his hands not only the ivory markets
occupied by the Arabs, but the vast stores of that article held by them.”

Then came the extraordinary decree of 1891, declaring that everything
in the country, the land and the produce thereof, belonged to the State,

*T, Fisher Unwin, 2/6 net.

134 ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

through which, as the author says, King Leopold “ appropriated Central Africa
by a stroke of the pen.”

Some of the means which were taken to stimulate the zeal of the officials
to force rubber from the wretched inhabitants have only lately come to light ;
bonuses were offered for rubber, ivory, etc., exploited, in inverse proportion to
the cost of exploitation ; the less the native got for his produce the higher was
the official’s commission—a direct incentive to violence and robbery! The
officials were urged to “ increasing efforts to increase production,” and carte
blanche was frankly given as to the means employed; the actual circulars
are here quoted. No wonder that cruelties and brutalities were soon rampant
when everything was sacrificed to the one end of getting large quantities of
ivory and rubber, and, as one local official declared, he was ‘“‘ the only law and
only god in Katanga.”

We need not here refer to the abundance of evidence which was gradually
accumulated as to the horrors of this régime of force, which came from
travellers, missionaries British and American, French explorers, Pritish officials,
and from Italian officers employed on the Congo. Defenders of the Congo
régime always make much of the suppression of the Arab slave-trade, but a
far worse tyranny was set up in its place.

The appointment of the Commission of Inquiry in 1904-5, to investigate
alleged abuses, is fresh in the ‘memory of all, as is also the weighty report
which they issued on the terrible condition of things which they found, but
no sooner had they left than the régime they had described as wholly illegal
was again in full swing, and “the system has not altered one iota except for
the worse.”

As regards justice, the Commission deprecated the dependence of the
justiciary on the Executive, and, as a matter of fact, there is no real “ adminis-
tration” at all, though “laws innumerable have been drafted and flourished
in the eyes of Europe.”

“ King Leopold,” writes Mr. Morel, ‘has attached to his interests by various
means men schooled in all the subtleties of the law. Never, probably, has greater
ingenuity been displayed to give black the semblance of white—or at least of
grey.”

The judgments of the Congo Courts have been carefully kept secret, but
the publication of the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the Caudron case
was a revelation of the complicity of the Executive in the rubber slave-trade
and of violation of the laws by the Governor-General’ himself.

When officials are arrested and sentenced for outrages on natives, the
even-handedness of Congo justice is proclaimed, but Mr. Morel has traced the
subsequent events in several cases with curious results :—

“Of the subsequent fate of these men—who are all subordinate agents from
the out-stations in the bush—nothing ever transpires. I have been able to trace
one or two, not without considerable difficulty. Their history is a little diversified,
but one characteristic is common to all. After serving an infinitesimal part of
their sentence they come back very quietly to Belgium. Here a mysterious

-

Nov.-Dec., 1906.] ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. ° 135

Providence ensures their keeping quiet. Sometimes a local job is found for them.

A foreign appointment—preferably in Egypt it would seem—is rather
usual. No one knows, of course, who the fairy godmother or father is, but the
effect is potent. Silence is ensured—that is the main point.”

—

For all this gigantic system of cruelty and wrong one man is responsible.
The Sovereign of the Congo “ State” is himself the State. He has interpreted
sovereignty to mean possession, in pursuance of Which he has appropriated
practically the whole country and expropriated the native possessors, dividing
it into three parts—the Domaine Privé, the territory administered by the
Concessionaire Companies, and the Domaine de la Couronne.

Mr. Morel has investigated in some detail the profits of the coimpanies
and of the Domaines, as to which the correct figures are very hard to obtain,
but Professor Cattier has already given us some disclosures. Mr. Morel thus
sums up the available facts which he has gathered from various sources :—

“We find that the King’s philanthropic enterprise has in the last fifteen years
produced a net profit of just under £5,000,000, instead of a deficit of £1,085,000, and
that the close of these fifteen years finds the King in possession of shares in three
rubber ‘companies’ of a total Stock Exchange value of £2,000,000, apart altogether
from the enormous potential value of his holding in two other Congo ‘companies.’

. . The picture is completed by the revelation that to meet an alleged
published deficit of £1,085,000, he has contracted nominal debts to the amount of
£11,000,000, from which he has admittedly received £3,000,000.

‘The whole of these vast sums are the proceeds of the slave trade of the
Congo, raised directly or indirectly from the unspeakable oppression, misery and
partial extermination of the native of Central Africa.”

Mr. Morel devotes a chapter to the position of Belgium, which seems to
have lost the opportunity of annexing the Congo State on anything like
fair terms. She still, indeed, possesses the option of annexation, but the
Belgian Government and people have absolutely no control of any kind over the
Congo State, and cannot even demand accounts or information on its affairs.
The King has, with his usual acuteness, made his own position very strong,
and has now declared that if Belgium ever annexes she must respect all obliga-
tions and in no manner diminish the revenues of the Domaznes ; 7.e., she must
bind herself to maintain the present system of pillage unimpaired.

The last chapter of the book under review, entitled “ What Great Britain
can do,” is important. Mr. Morel quotes several well-known responsible
statesmen, who have pointed out that England and other parties to the Berlin
Act have a right and duty to interfere.

“From the ashes of an international conference, summoned in the name of
Almighty God, has sprung a traffic in African misery more devilish than the old,
more destructive, more permanently ruinous in its cumulative effects. A British
Government (a Liberal Government), with many misgivings, but with the best of
intentions, by its active participation in that conference, and by its adhesion to the
conclusions thereof, incurred a responsibility which cannot be set aside. . . .
Behind a unanimous Parliament stands a united Press. This Government and its
predecessor in office, have both alike addressed numerous protests to the author of
the evil, publicly and privately; protests which have not merely been ignored in

136 ; ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. [Nov.-DEc., 1906.

the sense of effecting improvement, but treated with contempt so marked as to be
perilously akin to insult.”

We have waited long enough, for while we wait the people are perishing.
Among immediate courses which Mr. Morel suggests are :—

The withdrawal of the eequatur from the Congo Consuls in Great
Britain.

The establishment of Consular jurisdiction in the Congo. We cannot
doubt that, as Mr. Morel says, the setting up of a British Court of Justice
“would liamper at every turn the working of the system of injustice per-
petrated towards the people of the land.”

The Berlin Act provides for the calling together of a Navigation Com-
mission to protect trade. Freedom of navigation as a means to trade is
unknown, and “consequently the general question of maladministration,
misrule, and spoliation is also involved.” The appointment of such a Com-
mission would be a stepping-stone to wider and closer international control.

In 1904 Lord Fitzmaurice reminded the House of Commons how easily any
European State could put an end to the existence of the Congo State by sending
a few ships to the mouth of the Congo. Thus the State may be said to“ lie
absolutely at the mercy of this country.”

It is more to the purpose to emphasise the great prestige which, as Mr.
Morel points out, Great Britain enjoys at the present moment—the immensely
important issues at stake, the calls of duty and honour, and the mandate given
to the Government by ‘‘a democratic Parliament convinced and unanimous,
to deal with this new form of the African slave-trade.” We cannot think that
they will be deaf to so powerful an appeal.

Sampa, By Herbert Strang.*

This well-written book of adventure describes the thrilling experiences
of a young Englishman in the Congo State and his championship of the
down-trodden natives against their cruel oppressors. The book is avowedly
written in the cause of Congo Reform, and all the facts and the framework
of the story have been carefully revised by those who know the country. |
There is plenty of fighting and blood, but no horrors of a revolting kind, and
the book may be safely recommended as a truthful and interesting represen-
tation of the state of things in the form of a story.

* Hodder and Stoughton, 5s,

ee
+¢

Resignation.

We regret to announce that Caerain Henry Knox, R.N., who has been a
member of the Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society for nearly eleven
years, has felt obliged to resign his position on account of deafness, which
now prevents him from being able to take part in the deliberations of the
Society’s Executive.